


wretched, and not yielding

by thewinterose



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Dark subject matter, Gen, Kinda, Manipulation, POV character is a dickhead, Toxic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-12 15:32:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19134934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewinterose/pseuds/thewinterose
Summary: She is extraordinary only in their minds, where kindness is a rarity and cruelty is their comfort.Or:Shigure and Tohru: a study in manipulation.





	wretched, and not yielding

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from catherynne m. valente’s novel deathless. it’s really dark, and yet infused with romance. a lot like shigure’s character actually. i hope you all enjoy this!

Shigure Sohma is not a good man. He’s never been one. Never even considered himself one, not even as a child. 

 

He’s cursed. He’s not even sure he has the capacity for good. He’s not sure that any of them do. 

 

Tohru Honda reminds him that he’s worse. 

 

He looks at her sometimes; when her hair fans out a certain way, or when her eyes shine, or when her cheeks flush, and he thinks that she’s different from him. From Akito. From all of them. With their hatred and manipulation and the ugliness of their sticky, greedy, touch-starved fingers.

 

He thinks she was ready-made for love. To be loved. To love in turn. 

 

He sees the way that Kyo’s eyes follow her. The way his cheeks flush in her presence. The way that sometimes he’ll catch himself staring at the fall of her hair or the catch of her waist, and he’ll blush in shame at the nature of his attraction to her. 

 

He sees the way Yuki dotes on her. The way he protects her. The way he’ll walk her home from work everyday and fuss over her and her safety like an overbearing son to his aging mother. He sees the way that Yuki smiles at her: soft and loving. The way he looks at her like she’s divine. A Madonna. She almost looks the part. In the right light. 

 

Shigure wishes he could see her that way; either as a woman or a friend; a daughter or a mother-figure; an angel or a regular girl. Tohru Honda is different, and yet more of the same. She is extraordinary only in their eyes, where kindness is a rarity and cruelty is their comfort. 

 

Sometimes, she’s the type of girl he wishes he could’ve fallen in love with. She’s soft. Soft with tenderness. With affection. With kindness. With love. 

And she is beautiful in her own way. At times, the magnitude of her presence, of her profound loveliness, catches him off guard. With the glow of the setting sun behind her, showering her with tones of pink and red and violet, highlighting the natural rose of her cheeks, she’s downright seraphic. 

 

But no. 

 

He sees Akito lying in the corner of the room, smothered in darkness, dying, thriving under her own shadow. Like him. Always like him. There is no one better. No one more suited to his own tastes. He was born loving her. 

 

No. And yes. 

 

Tohru is not an angel, or a Madonna, or a friend, or a lover, or a daughter. 

 

She’s a pawn. 

**Author's Note:**

> this was really short and weird and stylistic and i wrote it on a whim. i might add to it in the future, because shigure is a character that honestly captivates me and i feel like his and tohru’s dynamic is something that’s never really talked about when it should be. it’s filled with a lot of questions and nuance, and us writers can fill in the blanks however we see fit.


End file.
